Ted Mahsun

I just finished writing a novel ( the one I mentioned in my previous post ), and boy is this feeling exhilarating! Also, there is this overwhelming sense of relief. Word count: 55,827 words. Warning: Anybody who says it is too short to be considered a novel, will be shot. In the genitals. To say I'm excited is a little bit of an understatement. I've written novels before of course, and they've been monsters that have reached almost 100,000 words, but they've all been stinkers and worse, they've all been unfinished. Unfinished in the sense that I managed to get to the first draft stage, then decided it wasn't worth it to plow on with them. A polished turd is still a turd. This novel, I can say with some confidence, has the potential of being not a stinking turd. It's just a first draft of course and there's still a lot of work to be done to get it shiny and polished well enough for publication. There are names to be changed, MacGuffins to be insert...

I wrote 20,000 words quite recently. And I did it within 4 days. Why did I do it? And how? That's what this blog is all about, friends! Some time in the middle of January, I got an idea that I felt would make an interesting writing project. Something light and easy for me to start my writing year with. The elevator pitch I came up with was something that went along the lines of: " First Blood, Part II , but with robots. Or Predator , without aliens." I started writing a synopsis of what the novella would be. Spoiler warning: it's First Blood, Part II , but with robots. I planned out a beginning, a middle and an end, all plot points blatantly and shamelessly stolen from the awesome movie that is First Blood, Part II . I figured the beginning would be 5000 words, the middle would be 10,000 words, and the end would be 5000 words. Then I realised something, HEY! That's 20,000 words. Just nice for a novella. Then I started thinking how much time it would take...

So now my latest short story e-book is out for the consumption of the masses! Don't everybody rush to the bookstores at once! There's enough for everyone! Because they're e-books dammit! Here's a summary of what you're in for: When Sayyid opted to become an organic Volkswagen farmer, he did not expect the Volkswagens to misbehave and break out of his backyard. Now those crazy air-cooled vehicles are running loose in the neighborhood and only Sayyid can stop them. But the situation gets even more out of hand when they invade the home of cranky old Mrs. Winters and take her hostage. In this action-packed and absurd short story, all bets are off as to whether humans or air-cooled Volkswagens survive to see another day. The Dangers of Growing Air-cooled Volkswagens in Your Backyard can currently be found at the following outlets: Amazon Google Play Smashwords iTunes Barnes & Noble Kobo  and Barbra Streisand knows where else. Every time I push o...

It only took four years but I've finally finished writing a short story that I never thought I would finish. As I mentioned in the previous post , on the very last page of Zombies Ate My Muslim , I had promised that the next story would be The Dangers of Growing Volkswagens in Your Backyard . I didn't think anybody would be interested in reading it due to its ridiculously silly title, and so I never was motivated to finish writing it. Yet here I am, basking in the glow of a freshly completed short story. By complete, I mean first draft complete and not rewritten-umpteen-million-times-and-edited-to-hell complete. That process would probably take several more weeks and after that I'll self-publish it on all the major e-book outlets. That's still an achievement though. I shan't be bothered submitting this one to any pubs; it's way too silly for the likes of them. Like Zombies Ate My Muslim , it doesn't take itself seriously and it doesn't even want to t...

You know, I'm feeling inspired again. Inspired again to write. I'll be the first to admit I've been a little slack in my writing. Writing only a short story per year, for the past five or six years. Most of them aren't even complete. I kept abandoning what I started because I kept second guessing myself. Is this good ? Ugh. No, it isn't. I never want to see this piece of crap again. And so I wrote at a glacial pace and only when I felt like it. Until 2014... 2014 was a bit of a strange year for me. Mainly because in a year full of horrible tragedies, so many good things happened to me. Career-wise I was hitting it off. Kids too had finally grown old enough that they stopped trying to commit acts of random suicide every few minutes. And, in terms of my writing, I had finally gotten round to putting up Zombies Ate My Muslim on Smashwords and Google Play . It was no longer an Amazon exclusive! ( Pat on back, Ted. ) Putting it up on Smashwords is a big deal fo...

You may remember (well, okay, you may not) that I bought a Kindle Touch almost two years ago . I was absolutely smitten with it. I loved the the e-ink screen, the touch capabilities, the ability to buy a book and immediately start reading it without ever having to leave the device. It was heaven for a book lover. But now it's time for me to say goodbye to my beloved Kindle Touch. It was a trusty companion these past couple of years and kept me company for many long work commutes. The e-ink screen was, and still is, a marvelous piece of tech. But time brings new advancements and now that I own an iPhone 6 Plus , I don't see the point of using a Kindle Touch to read books anymore. You see, paired with the Kindle app the iPhone 6 Plus is the perfect device for reading e-books (well, at least from Amazon). When I first bought a the Kindle Touch, people claimed that e-ink screens caused less strain for the eyes while reading when compared to LCD screens. While that may be tru...

Well, that was unexpected. She said yes.

Dr. Irina managed to save the Poseidonite by forcing him to breathe through his gills. Her aides dumped him into a tub of water and his gills activated. Then it was just a matter of using a pair of tongs to extract the offending piece of bone. Mission accomplished. The Poseidonite was saved. Now it was my turn to make a move. As the Qastas had advised me: Tempus fugit. Carpe diem. Time is fleeting so seize the day. Act now before it is too late. When the matter of the Poseidonite was saved and I saw him and his Qastas friend out, I turned back into the sickbay and made my move. I asked her out.

Unfortunately, as I and the Qastas were engaged in deep conversation (and what a lovely conversation it was to have the chance to dip your toes in an immense ocean of knowledge and wisdom), the Poseidonite began choking, of all things, a fish bone. I had invited them for dinner at the lounge on the aft deck. It had a magnificent view and an amazing array of ocean culinary delights which as I suspected, delighted the Poseidonite and allowed me the time to talk with the Qastas. The Qastas immediately took charge of the situation. He rammed his finger across the poor Poseidonite’s neck, and massaged it. In an instant, he turned to me and said, “He’s choking and I cannot do anything about it. We’ll have to rush him to the sickbay.” I nodded. A crowd was already gathering around us, curious to see the commotion. I pushed some of the people aside and told them to make way, as the Qastas carried the Poseidonite on to his back. We ran as fast as we could to the nearest sickbay. When we...

The Qastas told me he was a roamer. He spent a moment calculating in his mind how long since he had left his native planet. He spouted a number but it was a number that had no equal in our language. To translate it into human words would have taken several thousand years to utter, and longer still to write down. Truly, the Qastas was full of wisdom, but what he shared with me that day, was merely a tiny drop in an ocean of infinity.

Yes, I must admit that I haven’t the will to take finger to tablet and write more about my experiences here on this ship since… well, you know. Her. But enough of sulking like a love-struck teenaged boy. Am I not traversing through one of life’s wonders, the vastness of space itself? As it so happens, we have still not reached Zubanaljanubiyy. In fact we are nowhere near even one tenth of the way there. That is just how vast space can be at times. Not much has happened and the only exciting moment we have had was when someone had the bright idea of swimming in the water tanks on deck 4. It was all fun and games at first but when Crewman Cadman drowned, things quickly turned sour. Many more would have drowned if not for the three aqua-dwelling crewmembers from Poseidon. They had gills but I wasn’t sure if they were surgical or natural. There just was no doubt that they were good swimmers. I was intrigued. I decided I wanted to talk to them and find out more. I tried to find a fr...

This blogpost is part of the A to Z Challenge which begins on April 1st. The goal is to post every day (except Sunday) in the month of April. Each blogpost will be associated with a letter of the alphabet. Check the A to Z Challenge page for more information. ~ ~ ~ The Starship Aprilis was a common and unremarkable transport ship built on Earth, back when humans were still bipedal and mostly organic creatures. The ship travelled between the many human colonies that were established at the time throughout the galaxy and served as both a cargo carrier and passenger transporter. The ship finally met its end when it was stuck in a crushing gravity field off of Taurus Baqara C, which killed all who were aboard and destroyed all the on-board data and most importantly, the ship’s log. Of the ship only a small section survived, which was discovered quite recently several million light years away, in a slow decaying orbit around a black hole. The remains of the ship offers no clue as...

This blogpost is part of the A to Z Challenge which begins on April 1st. The goal is to post every day (except Sunday) in the month of April. Each blogpost will be associated with a letter of the alphabet. Check the A to Z Challenge page for more information. ~ ~ ~ The Starship Aprilis was a common and unremarkable transport ship built on Earth, back when humans were still bipedal and mostly organic creatures. The ship travelled between the many human colonies that were established at the time throughout the galaxy and served as both a cargo carrier and passenger transporter. The ship finally met its end when it was stuck in a crushing gravity field off of Taurus Baqara C, which killed all who were aboard and destroyed all the on-board data and most importantly, the ship’s log. Of the ship only a small section survived, which was discovered quite recently several million light years away, in a slow decaying orbit around a black hole. The remains of the ship offers no clue as...

This blogpost is part of the A to Z Challenge which begins on April 1st. The goal is to post every day (except Sunday) in the month of April. Each blogpost will be associated with a letter of the alphabet. Check the A to Z Challenge page for more information. ~ ~ ~ The Starship Aprilis was a common and unremarkable transport ship built on Earth, back when humans were still bipedal and mostly organic creatures. The ship travelled between the many human colonies that were established at the time throughout the galaxy and served as both a cargo carrier and passenger transporter. The ship finally met its end when it was stuck in a crushing gravity field off of Taurus Baqara C, which killed all who were aboard and destroyed all the on-board data and most importantly, the ship’s log. Of the ship only a small section survived, which was discovered quite recently several million light years away, in a slow decaying orbit around a black hole. The remains of the ship offers no clue as...

This blogpost is part of the A to Z Challenge which begins on April 1st. The goal is to post every day (except Sunday) in the month of April. Each blogpost will be associated with a letter of the alphabet. Check the A to Z Challenge page for more information. ~ ~ ~ The Starship Aprilis was a common and unremarkable transport ship built on Earth, back when humans were still bipedal and mostly organic creatures. The ship travelled between the many human colonies that were established at the time throughout the galaxy and served as both a cargo carrier and passenger transporter. The ship finally met its end when it was stuck in a crushing gravity field off of Taurus Baqara C, which killed all who were aboard and destroyed all the on-board data and most importantly, the ship’s log. Of the ship only a small section survived, which was discovered quite recently several million light years away, in a slow decaying orbit around a black hole. The remains of the ship offers no clue as...

This blogpost is part of the A to Z Challenge which begins on April 1st. The goal is to post every day (except Sunday) in the month of April. Each blogpost will be associated with a letter of the alphabet. Check the A to Z Challenge page for more information. ~ ~ ~ The Starship Aprilis was a common and unremarkable transport ship built on Earth, back when humans were still bipedal and mostly organic creatures. The ship travelled between the many human colonies that were established at the time throughout the galaxy and served as both a cargo carrier and passenger transporter. The ship finally met its end when it was stuck in a crushing gravity field off of Taurus Baqara C, which killed all who were aboard and destroyed all the on-board data and most importantly, the ship’s log. Of the ship only a small section survived, which was discovered quite recently several million light years away, in a slow decaying orbit around a black hole. The remains of the ship offers no clue...

This blogpost is part of the A to Z Challenge which begins on April 1st. The goal is to post every day (except Sunday) in the month of April. Each blogpost will be associated with a letter of the alphabet. Check the A to Z Challenge page for more information. ~ ~ ~ The Starship Aprilis was a common and unremarkable transport ship built on Earth, back when humans were still bipedal and mostly organic creatures. The ship travelled between the many human colonies that were established at the time throughout the galaxy and served as both a cargo carrier and passenger transporter. The ship finally met its end when it was stuck in a crushing gravity field off of Taurus Baqara C, which killed all who were aboard and destroyed all the on-board data and most importantly, the ship’s log. Of the ship only a small section survived, which was discovered quite recently several million light years away, in a slow decaying orbit around a black hole. The remains of the ship offers no clue...

This blogpost is part of the A to Z Challenge which begins on April 1st. The goal is to post every day (except Sunday) in the month of April. Each blogpost will be associated with a letter of the alphabet. Check the A to Z Challenge page for more information. ~ ~ ~ The Starship Aprilis was a common and unremarkable transport ship built on Earth, back when humans were still bipedal and mostly organic creatures. The ship travelled between the many human colonies that were established at the time throughout the galaxy and served as both a cargo carrier and passenger transporter. The ship finally met its end when it was stuck in a crushing gravity field off of Taurus Baqara C, which killed all who were aboard and destroyed all the on-board data and most importantly, the ship’s log. Of the ship only a small section survived, which was discovered quite recently several million light years away, in a slow decaying orbit around a black hole. The remains of the ship offers no clue as...

This blogpost is part of the A to Z Challenge which begins on April 1st. The goal is to post every day (except Sunday) in the month of April. Each blogpost will be associated with a letter of the alphabet. Check the A to Z Challenge page for more information. ~ ~ ~ The Starship Aprilis was a common and unremarkable transport ship built on Earth, back when humans were still bipedal and mostly organic creatures. The ship travelled between the many human colonies that were established at the time throughout the galaxy and served as both a cargo carrier and passenger transporter. The ship finally met its end when it was stuck in a crushing gravity field off of Taurus Baqara C, which killed all who were aboard and destroyed all the on-board data and most importantly, the ship’s log. Of the ship only a small section survived, which was discovered quite recently several million light years away, in a slow decaying orbit around a black hole. The remains of the ship offers no clue...

This blogpost is part of the A to Z Challenge which begins on April 1st. The goal is to post every day (except Sunday) in the month of April. Each blogpost will be associated with a letter of the alphabet. Check the A to Z Challenge page for more information. ~ ~ ~ The Starship Aprilis was a common and unremarkable transport ship built on Earth, back when humans were still bipedal and mostly organic creatures. The ship travelled between the many human colonies that were established at the time throughout the galaxy and served as both a cargo carrier and passenger transporter. The ship finally met its end when it was stuck in a crushing gravity field off of Taurus Baqara C, which killed all who were aboard and destroyed all the on-board data and most importantly, the ship’s log. Of the ship only a small section survived, which was discovered quite recently several million light years away, in a slow decaying orbit around a black hole. The remains of the ship offers no clue...